The Illinois Republican Party did itself no favors by sticking to a story, designed to embarrass a Democratic candidate for Congress but shown to be false, for the better part of three days.

Finally, Wednesday afternoon, the GOP took down a pointed news release and posts on Facebook and Twitter about what turned out to be incorrect allegations that Democrat ANN CALLIS of Edwardsville had plagiarized issue statements on her website.

The Republican incumbent Callis is running against in the 13th Congressional District, which includes part of Springfield, is U.S. Rep. RODNEY DAVIS of Taylorville. As of Monday, when it was already clear that the state GOP's story was flawed, the Davis campaign had no comment on the flap.

This began with a news release from the party on Monday, with the headline, “Breaking: Ann Callis Caught Plagiarizing On Her Campaign Website.”

“Ann Callis thinks she deserves to be your Congresswoman, but she has to steal someone else's words to tell you why,” the release quoted state Republican Chairman JACK DORGAN.

The release went on to show similarities between issues statements on the Callis website and that of a Democratic congressional candidate in Iowa, STACI APPEL, who is unopposed in the June 3 Iowa Democratic primary in that state's 3rd Congressional District. There's a crowded GOP field of six candidates.

ANDREW WELHOUSE, communications director of the Illinois GOP, told me he discovered the similarities on Web pages as he “Googled a couple key phrases.”

He also said he used a website called web.archive.org that showed its first record of Appel's issues Web page on Dec. 24, and the first similar page on the Callis site on Jan. 9.

Well and good, but there were some problems. One was that the Callis issues were posted in August, according to her campaign manager, MARSHALL COHEN. He provided an Aug. 15 screen shot of a couple of items from an internal campaign computer program, and said the words were posted to the public Callis campaign site the next day. He also shared an email showing that Callis was involved in the crafting of the positions.

Even more damning of the GOP charge was that the Appel campaign admitted it lifted the quotes.

“The language identified on that (Appel) page was intended to be a temporary placeholder and was inadvertently published,” BENJAMIN MILLER, Appel's campaign manager, told me Monday afternoon. “We removed the copy when it was brought to our attention.”

Page 2 of 3 - What about those dates that the Illinois GOP operative found? Well, LUCAS VESPA, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield, said screen shots obtained on websites such as web.archive.org probably give accurate dates of the Web pages captured by that site, but added that there's no way to tell if a page existed earlier than that screen shot.

“You can't say it did or it didn't” exist earlier, he said of any page shown on that site. “They'd had to take that snapshot every day or every hour, and they're not doing that.”

The Appel campaign was even the subject of a Des Moines Register story based on the Illinois finding, saying Appel was the one accused of plagiarism.

“Ben Miller, Appel's campaign manager, said Monday that he was responsible for the content copied from the website of Democrat Ann Callis,” that story said.

Confronted with all this, Welhouse told me: “I'm not going to argue with what Appel's campaign said.”

“I guess at the end of the day I am glad that what we were able to put out showed that Democrats are plagiarizing off each other,” he also said.

The continuing problem? As of early Wednesday afternoon, that anti-Callis news release, including the incorrect headline and the statement from Dorgan based on falsehoods, remained on the state GOP's website, www.ilgop.org.

Finally, by late afternoon, it was gone.

“I'm glad that Staci Appel's campaign came clean, and we removed the post to reflect that development,” Welhouse said.

Callis had issued a statement Tuesday saying, “Rodney Davis should call on his allies to take down their lies and apologize. These kinds of false political attacks are exactly what's wrong with Washington. …”

By the way, Welhouse also had pointed out that the Callis website was down for a time.

“By trying to make hay out of a short website renewal issue that was fixed over the weekend,” Cohen said, and by sticking with “blatant lies” that include “ignoring the admission of guilt by the Appel campaign,” it just shows how much the GOP wants to distract voters from Davis' record.

The race in the 13th is considered one of the most competitive in the country. Outside groups are expected to spend millions backing each candidate.

In addition, reports for committees run by the candidates themselves showed that in the first three months of the year, Davis had more than $1 million on hand at the beginning of the year, raised nearly $614,000 in the quarter, spent more than $723,000, and had nearly $952,000 on hand as of March 31.

Page 3 of 3 - Callis began the year with more than $517,000 in her account, raised more than $290,000, spent nearly $294,000, and had almost $514,000 on hand on March 31.

Pollard re-elected

RANDY POLLARD of Vandalia, the Fayette County GOP chairman and downstate director for U.S. Sen. MARK KIRK, R-Ill., was re-elected Saturday as president of the Illinois Republican County Chairmen's Association.

Pollard has led the organization since 2006, and was unopposed in his bid for another two-year term. The group met in Springfield.

Pollard said he will work to use the organization's resources to help county chairmen aid local and statewide GOP candidates win their elections this fall.

Talent on display

The Conference of Women Legislators puts on a big show every couple of years and a smaller one, for just a taste, on the off-years.

This is one of those smaller-event years, but it will still offer folks a chance to see talents they might not have known some lawmakers have.

The cocktail buffet, with cash bar, begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, with performances at 6:30 p.m. The $150 tickets help fund leadership training for college women interested in careers in public service, and scholarships to help women 25 and older go to college.

A list of performers in the show, called “A Little Levity,” includes — of course — House Minority Leader BARBARA FLYNN CURRIE, D-Chicago, backed up by Reps. NAOMI JAKOBSSON, D-Urbana, and ELAINE NEKRITZ, D-Northbrook; Reps. DAN BURKE, D-Chicago, and KATE CLOONEN, D-Kankakee on pianos; and team performances, one led by Rep. MIKE FORTNER, R-West Chicago, and another by Reps. ANN WILLIAMS, D-Chicago, and KELLY BURKE, D-Evergreen Park.